Some Unholy Need
by PaperRevolution
Summary: Urban fantasy/apocalypse AU. When the Red Priestess Melisandre raises the dead, Sansa Stark and the Tyrell siblings find themselves in peril as the lives they have known begin to crumble.
1. Chapter 1

**Summary: Urban fantasy/apocalypse AU. When he Red Priestess Melisandre raises the dead, Sansa Stark and the Tyrell siblings find themselves in peril as the lives they have known begin to crumble.**

**Prologue**

_**Libertatem Mortis**_

London, 2012

St. Andrew's Church is empty, save for one woman. She stands behind a lectern whose polished rosewood gleams dully in what little moonlight slants through the stained-glass windows. Her face is dappled with colour from the glass; pinks, greens and blues – they make her features look strangely disparate, like bits of a puzzle fixed hastily together.

"Libertatem -"

It is an effort for the Red Priestess to wrench the words out of her throat; they emerge garbled and fragmented. It is not satisfactory. It is not _enough._

"Libertatem – libertatem mortis. _Libertatem mortis. Libertatem mortis._"

They say words have power, but that is not strictly true. Words _may _have power, but it all depends upon who speaks them. And the Red Priestess has power; whatever the rest of the Way of Light might say about her; that much, at least, is true.

"Libertatem mortis!" _Freedom in death. _She will finish what she started. Shadows, sinuous and somehow solid, wrap themselves around her. A keen wind whips back her hair. Her mouth is a wide, yawning, gaping thing, the words rolling forth from it inexorably. And with the words comes what can only be described as a roiling tide of more shadow.

The shadows coalesce, dripping downward and then elongating into humanoid forms, scabbed and slick; mottled grey in colour. Creatures of ash and shadow. _Her _creatures. She did this.

She made this possible.

_Libertatem mortis. _Freedom in death. The Red Priestess' shadow-children press palm to palm, merging their energies; breeding. The Way of Light will thank her for this, she knows. She has given them a means of taking the city; a means, moreover, of destroying the Sighted Families.

Her laughter screams through the little church. The little church that is now no longer consecrated ground.

"Go!" she half-screams at her creations, through her laughter, "Go! Find them all! _Stark! Baratheon! Lannister! Greyjoy! Tyrell! Tully! Martell! _Find them! Kill them!"

**-OoOoOoOoOoOoO-**

Sansa is sitting in the bathtub when the ghost of her father visits her. His invasion of her privacy is an instantaneous mark of the seriousness of the situation, but Sansa, bringing her knees up to her chest with a splash and wrapping her arms tightly about them in indignant humiliation, does not see this immediately.

"Dad!" she shrieks, "What are you – can't you see I'm – get _out."_

Her father – not transparent the way ghosts appear in books and on the television, but with a certain pale, insubstantial quality to his form nevertheless – stands near the sink, pointedly not looking at her. When Sansa realises that Ned is diligently scrutinising the door-knob, she composes herself enough to ask, not without a trace of asperity:

"What are you doing here?"

There is a brief, weighted pause before Ned speaks. When he does, he sounds exactly as she remembers, though he is grimmer than she has ever heard him (which is saying a lot).

"The Red Priestess Melisandre has called forth the shadows of the dead and given them form," he tells her, "She's sending them after all the Sighted Families. She wants control of the city, Sansa, and then after that the entire country, and then the Gods only know what. Get your mother; get Robb and Bran and Rickon; Jon and Arya, too, if you can find them."

Water sluices down Sansa's body as she stands up and steps out of the bath, stumbling; made clumsy in her panic. She snatches up a towel; warm, soft and butter-yellow, all while her father fixes his gaze on the door, his mouth a thin line.

"Why couldn't you reach Mum?" she asks, scrubbing furiously at her skin in a fruitless attempt to dry herself more quickly.

"She's meeting with some of the lesser Sighted Families this evening to try and form an alliance; you know that. I couldn't risk appearing to her in front of the Freys – you know how they are."

Sansa wrinkles her nose and suppresses a shiver. "I don't know why she had to –" she begins, but Ned cuts her off gravely.

"We need all the help we can get, Sansa. War's on the way. And we might have the advantage of the Sight, but none of us have ever fought an enemy like this one, before." A ripple runs the length of the strange, diluted echo of her father and he sighs loosely. "I'm fading, Sansa. I have to go. Find your mother – good luck – be safe –"

And then, quick as a blink, he is gone.

Clutching the towel to her, Sansa barrels through the empty house, graceless in her haste. She crashes through her bedroom door and drops the towel without preamble, scrabbling for clothes in the warmth of her walk-in wardrobe. Here, amongst the soft winter coats and chiffon dresses an designer jeans, nothing seems different, and for just a moment she stands still and allows herself to pretend that everything is normal.

But the sense that something is amiss clogs the air and settles on her bare arms with a feeling akin to pins and needles, and she snags the nearest pair of jeans and, frantically, begins to dress.

**-OoOoOoOoOoOoO-**

Garlan Tyrell is leaving Paddington Station when the shadows take him.

Had he not been on the phone to his girlfriend, Leonette; had he been paying more attention; had he been less tired and restless from his journey, he might not have proved such an easy target. Even as he is slammed against the wall and his phone clatters to the curb, he is cursing himself because damn it, he is _strong. _He should have had a _chance. _But the cold's bone deep, paralysing. He can't move his arms to reach for the knife he carries with him. Heck, he can't even move his head. His eyes stare fixedly ahead into a looming face, eyes like pools of thick, viscous tar; jaw flopping uselessly; flat nose contracting even further as it scents him, and he knows he is going to die.

Leonette's voice floats up from the phone on the ground like a shrill, distant echo. Panicked, she's saying his name over and over. She's not Sighted. She doesn't know. She probably thinks he's being mugged or –

He doesn't complete the thought, because teeth that seem to be made of stone and glass and fire all at once tear at his flesh and then he knows no more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter One**

_**Prelude to Chaos**_

Out in the street, the first lurid flush of adrenalin fades and Sansa realises that she is afraid. She fumbles her key into the lock and wonders why these sorts of things always have to happen when it's _dark. _Why can't evil attack in broad daylight, for a change? At least it'd be unexpected.

She pockets the key and sets off at a brisk walk, head ducked low, a wind that seems too brisk and sharp for May lashing loose tendrils of auburn hair into her face. In her panic, she is beginning to realise how furious she is that her father came to her. She's about the least likely candidate to be able to deal with this sort of thing – unlike Arya, who makes a habit of running around the country looking for demons and undead to fight, Sansa's always done her damndest to pretend her Sight doesn't even exist. Not that it was always particularly effective – the Sight has a way of getting in the way of normal life, even when you try to suppress it.

People pass her in the street; a woman wheeling a pushchair; two men in sharp suits, briefcases in hand. The _sameness _of it all is almost unsettling, and Sansa wonders what it must be like to be oblivious; not to feel the old magic pooling in the air. It seems to rise from cracks in the pavement; from between the bricks that make the walls of the buildings around her. She tries to forget the nauseous feeling and think of something else.

She'll get Robb first, she decides. At least she knows where he is. Robb's at a party up at Highgarden House – the same party she was supposed to be getting ready for when Ned visited her. _Oh God. Oh no. Oh no. _Blind terror almost freezes her in her tracks as she realises that the place will be jam-packed with Sighted people tonight, making it more-or-less a magnet for the Red Priestess' dead. Robb – Margaery – _Willas – _her brother and her best friend and the boy she thinks she loves are there, all of them. What if - ?

It is now that Sansa begins to run, heedless of the mutters and strange looks people shoot in her direction as she passes. Her mind's blank. She can't even think what the nearest Tube station is – Warrington Bank Key? Is it Warrington Bank Key? No, don't be stupid –

The brief force of shock travels up her legs with each step she plants. Her breath burns in her lungs, and she begins to doubt whether she can even reach Highgarden House in time to do anything. _Do what, anyway? Everyone's right, you _are _stupid. Arya'd be much more use right now. Gods, I hate that._

She rockets around a corner, and realises too late that something is very wrong. This street is quieter – there's no one about, save one lone figure moving purposefully in her direction. It's human in shape; not particularly broad or tall, and for a split-second her mind tells her it's just a regular person.

Then it passes under the glow of a streetlight and she sees the damp, marbled grey of its skin and the putrid voids that make its eyes and mouth.

Sansa screams – a shrill, brittle sound.

The thing is still advancing. Sansa pulls out the knife that's strapped to her left boot. Her hands are trembling. She begins to back away – but then – then –

-Then in a roaring rush of curdling black air and old stink, the thing is right in front of her, its hands grabbing at her throat. Cold hands; colder than anything she's ever felt in her life. Sansa lets out a strangled gasp, struggling fitfully.

The shadow-dead's jaw flops. A low sound somewhere between a whine and a moan emerges from its ruined mouth. And oh Gods she's going to die – she's going to die right here, and Mum and Robb and Bran and Rickon won't even know – and –

And suddenly, the dead thing releases its hold on Sansa with a thin, keening screech. She jumps back from it and it falls face-forward onto the pavement, its hands and feet twitching. Sansa would have missed the little, unobtrusive dart sticking out of the back of the thing's neck, were it not for the flutter of yellow-orange ribbon tied to its end.

She looks up. A young woman stands a few feet away, a small, silvery gun the like of which Sansa hasn't seen before clutched in her right hand. She's shorter than Sansa, with olive skin and fine, feathered fair hair. She stands there in her navy skirt and her blouse with the Peter Pan collar, looking neat and preppy, and yet her eyes are fierce.

Sansa opens her mouth to speak, and pushes out only air. The other girl watches her, lips twitching upwards in mild amusement. It takes several long moments before she is finally able to get out the words:

"Is it – is it dead? Did you kill it?"

The girl lets out a tinkling, musical laugh. "It was already dead," she points out, sounding somehow older than Sansa expected. "But yes, it won't get back up again now. Those darts are filled with a particular sort of poison which freezes shadow-matter." She darts a brief glance over her shoulder. "We need to move. There are more of them close by."

Sansa's thoughts snap into sharp focus. Robb. Margaery. _Willas._

"Highgarden House," she blurts, "I mean, I need to go there. It's full of people with the Sight – there's a party going on, I was supposed to be going to it, but... anyway. The shadow-dead will all flock there –"

"Like flies to meat, yes," the girl nods calmly, "We'd better get going, then, hadn't we? By the way, a little rude of us not to introduce ourselves, isn't it? But excusable, I think, given the circumstances. Hello, Sansa Stark. I'm Tyene Sand."

**-OoOoOoOoOoOoO-**

At Highgarden House, music plays just loud enough to dance to if you wanted to, but not loud enough to make the walls vibrate. The party – Margaery's eighteenth – is a slightly more sedate affair than she'd have liked; the presence of Mr and Mrs Tyrell and a few of their friends makes the younger generation profoundly aware of anything they might be doing wrong. The result is that people stand grouped in tight clusters, sipping at their drinks and chatting amongst themselves, and wishing for something to happen.

In the kitchen, Loras Tyrell and Renly Baratheon are supposed to be making drinks – this, Renly brought on them by insisting that he makes the best cocktails in the city, despite never having made a cocktail in his life. The first attempt goes disastrously wrong; a concoction so sickly-sweet it's practically undrinkable.

"All I can taste is oranges and a load of sugar," says Loras, smirking, "Lost your touch, oh great Cocktail King?"

"Oh, shut up," says Renly, swatting at him idly, "You have a go, if you think you could do better."

"I can think of more interesting things to do," replies the younger man playfully, grabbing at the belt-loops of Renly's jeans and tugging him nearer.

"You're bloody incorrigible," mutters Renly, but he doesn't sound too bothered about it. His hands come up to tangle in Loras' soft, brown curls and he kisses him lightly; teasingly –

The door bangs open and they spring away from each other as though the other was made from burning coals. Leonette Fossoway, Garlan's girlfriend, stands there white-faced and wide-eyed, clutching her phone like a lifeline.

"Something's – something's happened to Garlan," she gets out, her voice trembling, "I think he's – he's – hurt, or..." she doesn't say the alternative aloud, but there's no doubt as to what she's left unspoken: _dead._

"What happened?" urgency sharpens Loras' voice, "Leonette, _tell _me."

Leonette pulls in a shaky breath. "I was talking to him on the phone. I – I called him to see if he was going to be late, and he was just leaving the station – then there was this awful, rushing noise; God knows what it was... I can't describe it...then he must have dropped the phone, and all I could hear was him shouting – _screaming..."_ her voice is lost in fresh sobs; she lowers her head, shoulders shaking. Renly goes to stand beside her and puts a comforting arm around her.

Loras is pacing. Leonette, who does not have the Sight, cannot see the frenetic energy coming off him in waves, but Renly can and it makes him concerned. Loras will barge into this, whatever _this _is, without a second thought, and then –

He cuts off the thought abruptly, skin prickling from the presence of something else in the air; something a lot thicker and darker than Loras' restive, furious panic.

"Can you –" his voice emerges quieter than he'd expected it to, and a little hoarse, "Can you feel that?"

Suddenly, the other man stands very still. "That's –" he starts.

But then the window behind him smashes with a sound that seems far louder than breaking glass ever could, and a grey shape, ball-jointed and slack-mouthed, launches itself at him.

Leonette's scream and Renly's shout mingle in the chill, clotted air. On the floor, Loras struggles with the dead thing, his efforts hampered by the cold that grips him, threatening to freeze him in place. He jerks his elbow back into the creature's stomach and it loosens its grip just enough that some of the cold begins to recede and he can move more freely. He's prying its hands away from his throat when the thing lets out a hissing, rattling stream of old, dead air and goes limp. He pushes away its hands in disgust and stumbles to his feet, knees still a little stiff from the cold (is this what it feels like being Willas?)

There is a bread-knife protruding from the creature's back.

"Thanks," Loras tells Renly, who shrugs as though it's nothing; as though he'd merely helped him lift a particularly heavy and cumbersome piece of furniture.

"There'll be more of them," he says, "We have to get as many people out of here as we can."

Leonette is shaking uncontrollably, her face ashen.

"Wh-what _was _that? Is that – is that what...what _got _Garlan?"

"Probably not that particular one," Renly tells her, "But yeah, something like it."

"There are – God, there are _more _of them?"

But he is spared the trouble of considering how best to answer her, because there is a crashing sound from the neighbouring room, and the air is rent with screams.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Two**

_**Rise and Fall**_

He is upstairs in Highgarden House's impressive library, seeking an escape from the polite conversation and bad music, when it starts. The screaming and smashing of glass and thundering of feet. Willas throws down the book he has been reading and gets to his feet, his bad knee spiderwebbing a sharp spasm of protest up his thigh and at the same time down to his feet. He stifles a groan. _Shouldn't have got up so quickly._

There are footsteps on the stairs, going down rather than up. Voices – high; panicked; urgent – demand to know what's going on. For a few moments, he stands still and tries to think. Now that he's paying attention, he can feel it; the thick, viscous presence of the Red Priestess' magic in the air. Her sendings, whatever they are, tear through his home, but he can hardly go charging out there to strike them down; he couldn't even if he wanted to. He needs another course of action.

From the pocket of his jeans he draws the little woven band his sister made for him four summers ago after he injured his leg in a fight with one of the renegades. The band is simple, plaited leather, and ties about his wrist. But there are minuscule protection sigils cut into the brown leather that make it impossible for anyone or anything to come within a few inches of him when he's wearing it. Though he always carries it about his person – to keep Margaery from nagging, if nothing else – this will be only the second time he has actually used it. He remembers the humourless smile he had given Margaery when she had handed him the homemade charm. "So, Garlan and Loras protect you, but you protect me? Is that how it works now?" Her eyes had widened slightly and then narrowed, at the bitterness in his tone, and he had amended hastily, "But thanks. Thanks for – for thinking of me."

He hates it – even now, after years of schooling himself diligently against any trace of resentment – he hates that he cannot fight the way his brothers and even Margaery can; the way the Sighted _must._ He doesn't crave glory the way Loras does; nor does he feel the burning need to protect people which motivates Garlan, but his lack of martial prowess makes him a liability; makes him _helpless. _He's seen what bitterness can do to the Sighted; how it can twist them, so he tries his hardest not to let it get to him. But that's much easier said than done, he reflects grimly, wrapping the leather strap about his wrist and securing it in place with a knot. Immediately, the prickle of magic, like a low, slow electric current, starts through his body, making the little hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

Grabbing for his crutch, he moves across the room and then out onto the upstairs landing.

The first thing that hits him is the chill in the air. It's much colder out here than in the library. Freezing, in fact; way too cold for May. It's an effort to keep himself from shivering.

The second thing is the noise. The library's on the top floor, far enough away from the party on the ground floor that he could hardly even hear the music from in there. But, distant as they are, there's no missing the screams and hideous tearing noises that emanate from the bottom two floors of the house. It gives him the strangest feeling, standing here, removed from all the panic and yet so close to it. It's like being in a dream, only somehow different. He can't quite explain it, even to himself.

The stairs are thickly carpeted, so he descends with a quietness that adds to the bizarre feeling of being there and not there at the same time. The fifth and fourth floors of the manor house are deserted, doors flung open, someone's overturned drink – coke and something, it looks like – staining the cream carpet on the fourth floor landing. The quiet pervading the atmosphere here stands in eerie contrast to the ruckus downstairs. There is a _dead _feeling in the air, he realises, with a swooping dread in the pit of his stomach.

On the third floor, he finds the first bodies. They are the only people left here.

One, he almost stumbles over on the stairs. She lies sprawled on her back, one arm flung to the side, where the stairs meet the landing. Her face, neck and shoulders are a bloody pulp – it's only from the pale turquoise dress she's wearing that he recognises her as his cousin, Elinor. Bile rises in his throat and his breath catches quick and sharp, so that he has to stand where he is for a moment, eyes pressed shut whilst he fights to compose himself. Keeping his gaze averted, he steps carefully over her and moves on.

The second corpse lies at the top of the next set of stairs, and all the breath rushes out of Willas' body at the sight of it.

It's Sansa's eldest brother, Robb.

His face, though glassy eyed and pallid, is still perfectly recognisable, unscathed apart from the horrible fact that it is no longer attached to his body. His head stares unblinkingly up at the ceiling from the third stair down, whilst the rest of him slumps against a wall; a wall now spattered with dark brownish-red. There is still a knife in the slack grip of his right hand.

Willas does not know how much time elapses before he forces himself to move. When he does, he feels even more as though he is sleepwalking. What is he going to tell Sansa? _Sansa._

_Sansa._

_Where is she?_

It is as though someone has jolted him with an electric shot from a runemaker. His eyes pull wide and his heart drums a violent tattoo against his ribs. He takes the stairs as quickly as he can, with only one thought in mind: _find her._

He turns out of the stairwell and onto the second landing – into bedlam.

There are more dead. Some he recognises – Myrcella Baratheon; a young renegade boy whose name he thinks might be either Tobias or Trystane, something like that – others he doesn't. And there are – _things_; some leaning over the fallen, others advancing on the living. Things with scabbed, mottled grey skin and gaping voids for eyes; things whose wetly glistening skin radiates a fierce cold. One is pinning a blue-haired boy back against a wall; lowering its ugly, misshapen head to tear at his terrified face, and Willas is about to throw his knife at the thing when something else catches his attention. The _something else _is a girl, her usually smiling face a mask of fear; her brown hair a wild tangle; blood dripping down her face from a cut above her left eye. One of the grey creatures has her backed against a closed door, its hands tightening at her throat as she struggles futilely.

He forgets all about the blue-haired boy, because the girl is Margaery.

Desperately, he hurls his knife at the creature. It lodges in its lower back, and it jerks, sputtering wetly, but its hands stay clamped firmly around Margaery's neck. If anything, it grips tighter, lifting her off her feet. Her legs kick wildly, drumming against the shut door, and Willas feels a horror wash over him that's colder than anything these creatures could inflict. She's going to be killed, right there in front of him; mauled to death like Elinor and Robb, and there's nothing he can do about it. He yells frantically, trying to get the thing to turn and redirect its attentions his way, but it pays him no heed. Perhaps it cannot even hear him. He starts towards the thing and his sister, painfully aware of how slow he is –

And something whizzes past him and buries itself in the base of the creature's neck. It releases Margaery and staggers, wheeling in a hopeless circle for a moment before crashing to the floor, a yellow-orange ribbon where there had been none before, fluttering innocuously at its neck.

Behind him, a voice shouts his name.

_Sansa's _voice.

Almost reflexively, he turns. Sansa stands at the top of the stairs leading up from the ground floor, a fair-haired renegade girl beside her. He hesitates for a moment, caught between his sister and the girl he loves, and then starts towards Sansa, whose pale blue jacket is stained with something that looks horribly like blood.

"_Sansa," _he starts, and her name has power on his lips; a sort of wavering, thrumming power, like the last echoes of a sung note after the sound has been cut short. "Are you –"

"She's fine," the renegade girl interjects coolly. "Help your sister up, if you want her to live. We need to go."

He complies, his mind too full of whirling thoughts and images to bridle at the girl's tone. Margaery, who had fallen when the shadow-creature let her go, is struggling to right herself, the effort made more difficult by the convulsive tremors wracking her slight frame. Willas and Sansa go to her at the same time while the renegade girl looks on impassively, guarding them should more of the creatures move in their direction, but making little effort to do away with the others wreaking havoc around them.

Willas is used to seeing his sister composed and poised, making arch observations or laughing lightly at something one of her friends has said. Now, Margaery's golden-brown eyes are very wide and she draws in laboured little gasps of breath that seem to exacerbate her panic. The skin at her throat, where the creature touched her, is greyish in colour; like a bruise, only darker. Sansa and Willas help her to her feet and, moving carefully around the fallen shadow-dead, begin to follow the renegade girl down the stairs.

**-OoOoOoOoOoOoO-**

"_It's not just that you want a normal life," _Sansa's sister Arya had flung at her once, in the midst of an argument, "_It's that you're _scared._ That's why you won't train and fight with the rest of us. Because you know you can't hack it."_ Sansa had stuck her nose in the air and replied sniffily that she refused to be drawn into Arya's silliness, at the time, but now, surrounded by pressing bodies, some of them icy cold, she is beginning to recognise the truth in Arya's accusation. She _is _scared, and what sane person wouldn't be? All around her, people are dying.

Her right hand is still clasped around Margaery's left, and her friend's grip is cold and clammy, like that of someone with a fever. In her other hand, she holds a knife that Robb gave her once; a knife she has never used. Willas is at Margaery's other side, and Tyene walks in front of them, her poison-tipped darts felling more of the shadow-dead as they go. They pass through the downstairs hallway; through the living-room, where the people are pushed closest together – a pressing, frantic mass. Keeping as close as they can to the wall, they inch along, and Sansa's eyes seek out Robb in the midst of the crowd, but do not find him.

"Once we get out," Tyene calls out over her shoulder, "We have to torch the place. It's the only way to get rid of all the shadow-dead."

Sansa, unpractised though she is in Sensing, feels a sharp spike of astounded fury from Willas, such as she hasn't felt before.

"It'll also kill all the _living _people in here," he points out tightly, and Margaery, who so far hasn't said a word, stiffens suddenly and blurts out –

"Loras. He's here somewhere. You _can't –"_

Tyene's gaze softens slightly, but all she says is: "If he hasn't managed to get himself out by now, he's as good as dead anyway."

It is now that Margaery – still shaken from the shadow-creature's attack, Sansa supposes distractedly, because she has never seen her like this – begins to sob in earnest. Sansa thinks of Robb and feels her own throat tighten, but it's all she can do to help Willas half-drag Margaery in the direction of the back door. She can't cry now. She can't show Willas that she's really as pathetic as Arya thinks she is.

In the kitchen, a shadow-creature grabs at the back of her jacket and she lashes out blindly with the knife, bending her arm back as far as she can while a pounding litany of _this is it this is it this is it _screams inside her head. But to her surprise, the creature lets out a hiss and releases her, and they move on.

They reach the back door, which is hanging from its hinges now, and pile out of it into the cool evening, fear and exertion quickening their breath. Tyene flicks open a compartment in the end of her oddly-shaped dart-gun and, from the small pack strapped to the belt of her skirt, she retrieves another round of darts, these ones with bright red ribbons tied about their ends. Before any of them can ask what she's doing, she takes aim and fires through the shattered kitchen window.

Whatever is inside the tiny dart must be incredibly powerful, because the entire left side of the house explodes with a sound that leaves Sansa's ears ringing. She and the others are flung back, rolling, skidding on knees and elbows across the churned-up lawn. Willas, staring up at what was once his own, makes a small, wordless noise that no one but Sansa notices. Margaery is still weeping. Tyene, though, is on her feet in seconds, stalking towards the side of the huge, once grand manor which remains standing; as close as she can get.

Her second dart is fired through the games room window, and Sansa's stomach twists as the entire place goes up. She knows it's coming, this time, and can do nothing about it, which is worse – far worse, than not knowing had been.

By the time Tyene has picked herself up and returned to the others, Sansa is standing. She faces the other girl with an anger she didn't know she had in her seething and scorching through her veins, leaving a bitter taste at the back of her throat.

"That's their _home!"_ she cries, her voice wobbling on the edge of tears, "That's their home, and you just – you just destroyed it without even thinking twice! All those people – you killed them –"

"I had to," Tyene interrupts quietly; evenly. "All those shadow-dead had our scent. They'd have tracked us after we left, and we couldn't have held them off. Fire's the only way to destroy them properly – better do it while they're all contained." Her dark blue eyes meet Sansa's lighter ones, staring her down, but Sansa, to her own surprise, isn't cowed.

"Don't you have a family?" she rails, "D'you think you'd like it if someone went and _murdered _them all without a second thought? Don't you _understand –"_

"Sansa –" Willas starts, but she ignores him, folding her arms across her chest and meeting Tyene's gaze, absurdly glad that she is the taller and so can look down at her.

"The Red Priestess – the woman who sent those things – you're as bad as her. You killed –"

"_Sansa._"

This time, Willas' voice is so insistent that she turns to look at him.

"Look," he says, pointing towards the wooded area that backs what used to be Highgarden House. Three figures, having emerged from the trees, are making their way slowly towards Sansa, Willas, Margaery and Tyene. At first, from the peculiar, halting way they move, Sansa thinks they might be more shadow-dead, and her heart jolts sickeningly. But as they draw closer, she realises with a rush of heady relief that she was wrong.

Margaery, sitting on the ground beside Willas, stops crying abruptly, at exactly the same moment that Sansa realises who the three people are.

Leonette. Renly. And Loras.


End file.
